Reports, muckraking, photos and musings from the veteran gay and AIDS human rights advocate Michael Petrelis. Based in San Francisco since 1995. Contact: MPetrelis_at_AOL_dot_com

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Obama AIDS Czar Candidate Goosby:Pay Rose as HIV Programs Cut

The U.S. global AIDS czar until January 21 was openly gay doctor Mark Dybul, who was forced out of his job at the State Department one day after the inauguration of Barack Obama and assurances had been made to him that he would continue his position for the near future.Dybul apparently was seen as too chummy with the Bush administration and it's large focus on sexual abstinence as prevention, and may have been let go to appease AIDS Inc executives who want a clean break from Bush's AIDS policies and those who carried them out.

Much attention for a potential Obama replacement has been on Dr. Eric Goosby, an AIDS advisor to Bill Clinton when he occupied the White House who runs the Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation, an affiliated nonprofit with the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. My opinion ofGoosby is that he was the consummate Clintonista AIDS bureaucrat who was not committed to rocking the boat to save lives and he is a prime example of a greedy HIV nonprofit executive director who puts who his salary above providing services to people with AIDS.

Pangaea has long been friendly with the William J. Clinton Foundation, and has received millions of dollars from the former president's tax exempt organization.On page 21 of the Pangaea IRS tax return for 2007, Goosby's group explains that it spent its Clinton Foundation dollars in the following six countries, for various HIV related projects: Bahamas, China,Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, South Africa and Ukraine.

Should this be of concern to the advisers guiding the president on his choice of new AIDS czar? I'm not sure if the close working relationship between the two foundations, and the extensive reach of Pangaea's programs in foreign landsthrough the generosity of Clinton's nonprofit, runs up against the Obama administration's rules for the former president, now that Hillary Clinton is the head of the State Department.

Let's turn to the four current IRS 990 tax reports from Pangaea and see what it tells us about Goosby fiscal stewardship and if we can predict his future course of action, if he's chosen by Obama.

From 2004 through 2007 Goosby's salary increased a minuscule 1.15%, while revenue fell a whopping 68%. You read right: 68%.

His compensation went from $248,935 up to $284,775, as revenue dramatically dropped from $6.0 million to $1.9 million.

Translation? As funds dried up to provide services and life-extending drugs to poor people abroad with HIV, Goosby in no way curbed his greed to enlarge his bank account. Like executive directors of AIDS services organizations in San Francisco that have faced and are facing budget cuts and smaller revenue streams,Goosby didn't diminish his salary - he cut programs.

What about Goosby's 2007 salary? It was $284,775, and out of a budget of $1.9 million, his compensation ate up 15% of that year's budget.

If Goosby is Obama's choice for U.S. global AIDS czar, and he is facing budgetary constraints and declining governmental donations, expect him to put his personal salary needs and those of his bureaucracy first, the needs of people living with HIV second.

The 893 figure is much higher than the number of new HIV diagnoses for the same year, presented in the recently published SF DPH study about how HIV is hyperendemic among gays here.

Table 1 of the study, third line down, "New HIV diagnoses," gives stats from the HARS, acronym for HIV/AIDS Case Registry, which I believe is maintained by the state and federal authorities, for men who have sex with men in San Francisco. Click here to read the table, on page 3:

2002426

2003533

2004590

2005454

2006396

The researchers state there was "Controlling for reporting delay of one year" for the HIV figures, meaning, the 2006 won't rise, or, if it does, by not very much.

If you take the almost 400 number from the study and compare it with just the 772 number from the presentation to the prevention council, you'll see a large discrepancy.

Not sure why that is, but the five-year HARS figures in and of themselves are highly noteworthy.

The figures document not an endemic, to my eye, but a decline underway, which, to my way of thinking is a positive thing. A shrinking rate of new HIV diagnoses in one of the country's hardest-hit cities calls for further discussion. Who knows, after we revive the dormant practice of town halls in the Castro about gay marriage equality, me might get around to a few public forums and the success of gay men controlling and preventing infections.

Let's try and follow the status of the two separate audits, one independent, one not so, of Equality California and the No on 8 campaign.

Veteran lesbian journalist Karen Ocamb, in an extensive and well-worth reading think-piece in which she reflects on the recent Equality Summit in LA, shared a nugget of news that ostensibly moves the accountability narrative forward. She writes of her announcements at the summit, over at the Bilerico site:

And I noted that Michael Fleming of the David Bohnett Foundation was conducting an independent audit (with UCLA) of the campaign.

Ocamb omitted the fact that Fleming was one of the 16 members of the No on 8 Executive Committee, and I wish she had informed readers of this fact, because we all need to know that a key architect of the failed campaign is executing the audit of the campaign.

Some critics might see this audit on par with Gov. Sarah Palin's state investigation of her Trooper-gate scandal, in which a board appointed by her found her innocent of wrong-doing. Defenders of the No on 8 leaders probably see no problem with Fleming doing the audit because he's from the non-profit world.

Regardless, I've not heard a word about when Fleming's audit will conclude and if the findings will be made public.

Queerty: No on 8 has announced that there will be an independent analysis of the campaign, but we still don't know who is going to do the analysis and when we can expect it. Is there any more information?

Kors: Well, I know it's going to happen. We're finding people who have run similar campaigns, but it's important that we choose people who were not involved in the campaign at all ... I think it's important that we do that and that there's nothing about how we lost that could, you know, be used against us in future campaigns.

In his standard weasel way of operating when accountability is the topic, Kors didn't say if the full analysis would be shared with the gay public.

[Kors] said EQCA has retained Woodward and McDowell to do an assessment.

Ted Green with Woodward and McDowell said that the company would be doing a report for EQCA that looks at EQCA's role in the No on Prop 8 campaign.

"That's a very separate and different animal from an overall analysis of the campaign," Green said.

I have to say, observing from a far distance the machinations at the LA summit of the gay leaders who devised the losing strategy, the accountability advocates who literally stood up to demand answers, and the younger gay generation with their electronic toys and their web sites is like watching cats playing ping-pong.

Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but I would like just once to watch these hip cats hit the ping-pong ball around in San Francisco.

Thursday, January 29, 2009

No on 8 Donations:$43.6M as of October 18

Many gay bloggers and marriage equality advocates have tossed around the figure of $40 million as the total amount spent by all of the No PACs. I, on the other hand, cited up to $45 million as the correct number, but I couldn't remember exactly where I read that in an SF Chronicle story, so I added up amounts donated to all No PACs to see what was the precise figure, as of the last filing, dated October 18.

Click here to read my breakout of how the No on 8/Equality for All committee spent its money, through the same date. Familiarize yourself with No on 8 expenditures, as part of one's civic duty to follow the campaign money after an election.

I took the amount each No committee had reported as of October 18 from the CA Secretary of State Debra Bowen's web site, to arrived at this amount for total contributions to the No forces: $43,611,039.

Nice chunk of change, and the figure will rise significantly on February 2, which is the day the secretary of state releases the final reports from all of the ballot initiative committees.

And to think the bulk of that pot of power-money didn't provide any visibiity to a married lesbian couple such as Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons, together 55 year. Nor did the millions go towards educating the voters about gay life and our battle for simple equal treatment before the law.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

SF DPH: Swiss HIV Study Must Be Evaluated;Cocktails, Not Condoms

Yes, I was seated when I read the following quaking news in the new SF DPH study on HIV and other gay STDs are hyperendemic.

What rocks and shocks in this little sentence is a huge shift away from the 2008 official city and AIDS Inc position on the controversial recommendations of Swiss experts that HIV poz people on cocktails and with no detectable, or much-reduced viral loads, were highly unlikely and very near nil chance of passing on the virus.

Whereas most prevention for positive interventions has focused on reducing risk behaviours, other outcomes, such as increasing treatment adherence to lower viral loads and thereby potentially reducing infectivity, should be evaluated from a community-wide prevention perspective.

The San Francisco AIDS Foundation and San Francisco Department of Public Health urge individuals living with or without HIV infection to continue to use appropriate HIV prevention measures, specifically, to use male latex condoms correctly and consistently during sex. A recent Swiss AIDS Commission report demonstrating that, in some cases, HIV-positive partners did not transmit the virus to their partners in the absence of condoms, is insufficient evidence to abandon safer sex practices for several reasons.

A month later, Project Inform put out a statement on the Swiss study, treating it more seriously than the SF DPH and SFAF, and the good that came from the controversy upon the recommendations' release, but still endorsed the condom code for all sexual activities, they went a step further and issued a call for poz guys sleeping with poz guys to use condoms. How last century of them!

Project Inform encourages HIV-positive people to consider the use of condoms during intercourse with other HIV-positive people in order to avoid potential re-infection and, as importantly, to avoid receiving or transmitting sexually transmitted infections other than HIV during sexual intercourse.

Despite the 2008 fierce opposition of the AIDS mafia to conduct any public community discussion on the idea of using the serosorting phenomenon, widespread cocktail usage, emerging epidemiology and honestly about gay male sexual intimacy in the third decades of AIDS, our local DPH is now bypassing any call for community discussion on the Swiss experts basic contention, increasing treatment adherence to reduce infectivity, and calling for outright evaluation of the recommendations.

When do DPH and AIDS Inc plan to announce implementing the necessary programs to bring about more treatment adherence, and designs for proper evaluation?

I'd like to see San Francisco move from hyperendemic levels of HIV infections to decreases. The way to do that is better use of cocktails, and community engaged that respects the intimacy needs of people living with HIV/AIDS.

A friend who used to work in AIDS Inc recently called my attention to the pubication in November last year of an important study, strangely unheralded by the Department of Public Health, showing that not just HIV infections, but AIDS mortality, saturation of cocktails on the infected population, gay syphilis and gay anal gonorrhea have been at hyperendemic level for a decade. The DPH study says these crucial surrogate markers for the state of the HIV/AIDS problem in San Francisco, from 1998 through 2007, have been endemic, meaning, flat and contained. WTF?

The estimated number of new infections in San Francisco nearly doubled to 900 last year from about 500 three years ago after having stabilized following aggressive prevention campaigns.

I'm happy to report that San Francisco was actually in the third year of endemic levels of HIV and other indicators, according to the new SF DPH study, published in the November 2008 edition of the Sexually Transmitted Infections journal.

The bottom line of the abstract is that HIV, AIDS deaths and gay STDs have been flat/contained for a decade and will remain so. While the researchers are displeased with the hyperendemic status, I say such a thing is very good because it means HIV and other indicators are not rising, and that the cocktails are doing much to prevention new infections.

Who can be against fewer HIV and STDs among gays, and people with AIDS living longer?

Click here to read the STI journal abstract, and go here to read the full six-page study. If you give a damn about AIDS, read the full study.

Here's part of the abstract, emphasis mine:

HIV is hyperendemic among men who have sex with men in San Francisco: 10-year trends in HIV incidence, HIV prevalence, sexually transmitted infections and sexual risk behaviour

Results: By 2007, there were over 13 000 HIV-infected MSM living in San Francisco. No consistent upward or downward temporal trends were found in HIV incidence, newly reported HIV cases, AIDS deaths, proportion of AIDS cases using antiretroviral therapy, rectal gonorrhoea or primary and secondary syphilis cases among MSM during the study period. ...

Conclusions: Temporal trends in multiple biological and behavioural indicators over the past decade describe a hyperendemic state of HIV infection among MSM in San Francisco, whereby prevalence has stabilised at a very high level. In the absence of new, effective prevention strategies this state will persist.

The absurdity of gay leaders that was abundantly on display, and driving the gay marriage agenda into the ditch, before the November 4 loss of Prop 8, continues today in chilling beauty. In the 12 weeks since the election, not a single public debriefing with either the scads of gay elected officials holding some sort of San Francisco seat or the San Francisco based leaders of the No on 8 campaign has been staged.

Unlike Los Angeles where public forums, some with No on 8 leaders, one or two without, have taken place, but here in boring podunk San Francisco we're still waiting for the leaders to do what they've done in so many other places across the state and nation.

Here it is four days after the big Equality California sponosered and organized Equality Summit in Los Angeles, and no notices from EQCA and San Francisco folks who went to the summit have come out, telling up of any plans for a report back to the Bay Area community. I'm beginning to wonder if Mark Leno, Tom Ammiano, Bevan Dufty and Jose Cisneros have passed a law banning public gay town halls, along the lines of the current ban on gay bathhouses, and no one told me.

I was reminded today that the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's annual Creating Change conference is happening in chily Denver, so I asked their spokesperson Inga Sorensen if Geoff Kors of EQCA and Kate Kendell of National Center for Lesbian Rights, both of whom live in Harvey Milk's city and have skillfully avoided all types of open accountability meetings on Prop 8 in the Castro, would be in Denver. Her reply:

Hi Mike,

Good morning to you.

There is a related CC workshop titled "Proposition 8 Campaign Debrief: Elections, Ballot Measures and Campaigns" that is slated for Saturday in which they are listed among the scheduled presenters.

Let me know if you need anything else.

Best,Inga

Actually, what I need is for a gosh darn town hall debrief with Kors and Kendell to finally take place in the city formerly known as America's Gay Mecca.

Monday, January 26, 2009

Foreman Shares Sources,Cancels Meeting

Matt Foreman has shared with me sources and links behind nearly all of the stats and numbers he included in his essay that appeared on gay blogs last week, right before the start of the Equality Summit in LA. I thought it odd he didn't post it at the web site of where he's the program director, the Haas Jr. Fund, so of course, it's doubly odd that the only place, as far I know, where his sources are posted is on my blog.

Frankly, I think a gay leader of Matt's stature, and with all the millions of dollars his fund donates to gay causes, ought to have a blog because he wields tremendous power and influence over our agenda. Just to better stay in touch with the community, and share his thinking with us.

But at least he took the time to get me what I requested, and for that I am appreciative, and he stirred some good discussions about Prop 8 and where we go from here.

At the same time, it seemed odd he wanted to meet with the D-list gay man, after I'd left him a voice mail suggesting both the Haas Jr. Fund, and two groups it heavily endows, Equality California and National Center for Lesbian Rights, begin holding town halls in the Castro. I pushing all advocacy groups and funders in San Francisco to start public discussions, but so far my pushing hasn't led to a return to the days of Harvey Milk and community empowerment and education through open forums.

I agreed to meet with him, date and time were set, and I sent Matt a message saying I would take up only 30-minutes of his time. This was because I had a short meeting with him at Creating Change in Oakland in 2005, at which he expressed keen interest in a proposal I made to him. I followed up with emails and calls to him and his aide Roberta Sklar, and never heard back from him. Best to keep our Tuesday meeting short, not get my hopes up, I said to him.

Matt has since spoken with his communications director, learned that I spoke with him late last week, and there is now no need to meet. I don't work in the charitable world, but I would expect a program director to keep in touch with the communications guy, even when traveling, especially since if one has just had a major essay posted on lots of blogs, and people are reacting to it.

No big deal when an A-gay backs out of meeting with a D-list gay, but what is important is that Matt backs the idea of public forums with researchers to discuss their work and findings. I don't recall any gay leader in San Francisco making such an endorsement, so I applaud Matt's support of the idea.

Below are two of his emails about the meeting, potential topics to talk over, and brief views on forums.

After that are his many sources and links. Excerpts from his original essay are in bold, my comments follow in italics, then his sources appear in blue.

In a separate note, he replied to my questions about the David Binder Research he cited. Matt says the research was not either directly, or indirectly through EQCA, funded with Haas Jr. Fund grant money.

Let's hope we one day see Matt holding an open meeting in the Castro. Same goes for EQCA, NCLR and pollsters putting out all the data.

Email #1:

Michael-

Will fill you in on the summit on Tues.

I can get you more detailed responses when I get back to town. most of the stats are from the post election DBR poll. There was a presentation on it yesterday and it's supposed to be up on the EQCAI site. There was a handout on it too.

The immorality stat is from an LA Time poll (Pew has similar data). The LGB vote proportion is from past exit polls, how the lgb vot went this time is from the DBR poll and the exit poll.

Let CA ring has a site - letcaliforniaring.org

It might be a good idea to have various researchers present accumulated findings in a forum.

As to who makes the best messengers, it depends on the issue - gay people work for discrimination but not marriage. Eva gave a great speech yesterday and made a point about this from another issue perspective. Same basic principle - I think a video is supposed to be up on the Web - don't know when.

We can talk about this Tues.

Matt

Email #2:

Michael –

My responses are below in blue.

In response to your email from yesterday concerning the meeting, I have a different recollection about what happened a few years ago.

I thought a meeting would be helpful to discuss your requests of the Haas, Jr. Fund. Because I was traveling, I didn’t realize you had spoken with Denis Chicola about your request that we host community meetings about Prop 8. We don’t think that’s an appropriate role for us, as Denis explained. As stated in my email responding to the questions posted on your blog, I think it might be a good idea to find a way for researchers to share what has been learned about moving people to support marriage equality. I will explore that. Given this, I don’t think we need to meet.

Matt

Sources and links from Matt:

- While we won among all voters under 65, more than two-thirds (67%) of voters 65 or older voted for Prop 8.

Was this data from the secretary of state? I'd like to see the age breakdowns of the Prop 8 vote.

- More than two-thirds (70%) of people who worship at least once a week voted for Prop 8 and they make up nearly half (45%) of the electorate. Yes, our side got an equally large proportion of people who hardly ever attend church (70%), but they comprise only 29% of the vote.

You seem to be discussing both polling data and election results. Am I right?

No, polling data. Election results do not contain this kind or information.

- an astonishing 94% of "Yes" voters said "religion" or the "Bible" was most influential in deciding how to vote.

- What does combining older voters, frequent churchgoers and Republicans (81% of who voted for Prop 8) yield? A rock solid, close to 50% of the vote, that's what. How solid? Nearly three-quarters (73%) of those who voted for Prop 8 said nothing - that's right, nothing - would have changed their mind.

I've not heard of this group before. Are they an arm of Equality California? Who are they and do they have a web site?

It is coalition and technically a project of EQCAI. It is not an “arm” of EQCAI - it has a separate executive committee that makes decisions for the coalition. Its Web site is www.letcaliforniaring.org.

Current executive committee members are:

Jim Carroll, Managing Director, EQCAI

Dr. Ignacio Castuera

Christina Cobb

Matt Foreman, Program Director, Haas, Jr. Fund

Shannon Minter, Legal Director, NCLR

Evan Wolfson, E.D., Freedom to Marry

(Vaishalee Raja was on the EC until a couple of weeks ago, when she moved from GLAAD to EQCAI. She was GLAAD’s Director of Media Field Strategy.)

- A baseline poll found that only 36% of people there supported marriage equality, 8-10 points below the state average.

Where is this baseline poll available on the web?

It is not available on the Web.

- A follow-up poll showed that support for marriage equality grew significantly, including a 16% jump among younger voters (as opposed to zero growth in markets where the campaign did not run).

- Here's another painful reality all this research again showed: using gay and lesbian people as messengers not only failed to move people in our direction, it actually hurt us - driving movables against marriage equality.

"All this research"? You've discussed quite a bit of research and I'm not sure which stat exactly you're referring to. And what are movables? I don't work in polling research so I don't have a clue what a moveable is. Sure would like to know where all this research is on the web and read it.

This refers to the research conducted in California under the auspices of Let California Ring. As noted in my op ed, movables in this situation are people who oppose discrimination against LGBT people but do not support marriage equality. It might be a good idea to have some kind of public forum where research could be addressed – there are many different people who have done this in many different states.

It is important to recognize two things. First, I am talking about messengers that work in mass media campaigns. LGBT people are extremely effective in small group, one-on-one conversations. I am convinced that if each of us had those conversations with our family, friends, co-workers and neighbors we would be well over the 50% threshold on marriage in California. Second, gay and lesbian people have been shown to be effective messengers in mass media efforts focused on job discrimination. Marriage is different.

- Closer to home, nearly three years ago the Haas, Jr. Fund, Gill Foundation, the David Bohnett Foundation, Ambassador Jim Hormel and others invested nearly $500,000 to understand what would move Californians to support marriage equality and how to address the deeply conflicting views the mushy middle holds about LGBT equality. Once again, ads featuring gay people - individuals or couples or families - just did not work.

Where's the online proof to support the contention that it didn't work? You may have an absolutely legit point, I just want to read the research that allowed you to arrive at this conclusion.

This research is not online. Let me ask you this: why in the world would people who have invested their lives in advancing LGBT equality and visibility NOT want to use gay people as messengers? Think of the people who have given their all to try to defeat these ugly measures in places like Oregon, Wisconsin, Florida – none of them are in the closet, ashamed, or afraid. Michael – how long have you known me – 22 years? – don’t you think I personally would love an in-your-face-gay message? Again, it might be a good idea to have a forum where experts could talk about this in greater detail.

- What did work were messages that pushed people to think about the issue in a new way, namely, asking them how would they feel if they were in our shoes. But again, gay and lesbian people didn't work as the messengers.

Please show me the research proving that pushing people to wear my Birkenstock's was a hit with voters. I think it would grealy help further the discussion you've engendered to have the stats and sources for all the numbers and conclusions you present.

Please refer to my points about Santa Barbara and the Garden Wedding ad. Two important points here:

The Garden Wedding ad did NOT ask people to vote any specific way or mention Prop 8. It was a purely educational ad and designed to move public opinion, not votes. Nonetheless, the change in public opinion there had an impact on votes.

One thing I failed to mention was that in Santa Barbara the ad run was accompanied by field work done by staff and outstanding local leaders. I regret that omission because those local heroes deserve incredible credit for all they did in the public education campaign and later in the effort to defeat Prop 8.

Today is my fiftieth birthday and I feel I've earned every beautiful wrinkle and gorgeous gray hair in my modified 'hawk hairdo - by living a great life for half a century.

(Actually, in gay years, I really hit 50 back when I was 35, but that's another story!)

The days leading up to today have been an emotional seesaw; lots of elation, a small degree of sadness, true appreciation for my family and big circle of terrific friends, and much happiness being alive.

This morning, I received the best present, actually, a gift I've enjoyed since June 1995 - a smile and lots of love from my incredible partner Mike Merrigan.

He has stayed at my side through good times and bad, without a piece of paper from the marriage bureau keeping us together.

After many great years together, I say, with all honest and simplicity, I look forward to and appreciate every day, knowing Mike is my partner and can bring a smile to face, and tons of pleasure living with him. Big thanks to Big Mike!

So, on this 50th birthday I am giving readers of my blog a present - the photo of Mike and I in NYC in the fall. We had just finished a fantastic meal full of delicious laughter with my sister Angela, who snapped the photo of us love-bears.

Happy birthdays wishes also go out to TV host Ellen Degeneres, radical political activist Angela Davis, and the country of Australia! Blessings to all.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Pam's House Blend: Wrong on SF's Prop 8 Forums, Lack Thereof?

Over at Pam Spaulding's House Blend site, a posting was made yesterday from Autumn Sandeen, a transgender advocate and writer from San Diego. Sandeen was at the Equality Summit in Los Angeles and she made a claim that shocked me. She says there have public forums with Prop 8 leaders in San Francisco, and this is simply false. There have been nosuch forums here.

We have not had a chance to vent directly at Prop 8 leaders, in particular Goof Kors and Kate Kendell, at public forums.

If Sandeen can produce a single article from either the SF Chronicle, the Bay Area Reporter, the Bay Times, or any online media, documenting when such forums have taken place, I'd like to read the articles, and will then, of course, issue an apology to her.

But until such time, I believe a correction should be prominently mentioned by Sandeen and maybe also the site's terrific hostess, Pam Spaulding, that a mistake was reported and is being corrected.

During the q&a period, tempers seemed high. One of the grassroots organizers from San Diego explained to me that one of the reasons for the palpable anger in the room was due to how Los Angeles had not had a debrief. In San Diego and San Francisco, for example, there were public sessions where LGBT community members could vent at the No On Prop 8 campaign for the perceived failures of the campaign. That didn't happen in Los Angeles, so apparently many of the Los Angeles folk never had a chance to vent their anger.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

'Harold's Real, Still-Living 'Maude'Appears at Castro Theatre

A packed house of "Harold and Maude" fans were at San Francisco's historic Castro Theatre on Thursday night, January 22, for a screening of the classic cult black comedy, with an on-stage appearance and talk with "Harold" himself - Bud Cort.

It was so fabulous to see this favorite film, for I believe my 48th time, with close friends and more than a thousand other fans, relishing the fabulous print shown up on the big screen. I could sense everyone else anticipating every line of dialogue, or hear others singing along with the Cat Stevens tunes, over my own low-key singing.

After the film, Cort came on stage for a talk with a leggy straight blonde woman, and he was rather droll and entertaining.

However, he had a hired goon with him, loudly and forcefully attempt to stop anyone in the front left section of the theatre from standing near the stage and snapping a few pics. Unlike other, more luminary stars of the big screen who've come to similar tributes at the Castro who bask in being asked to smile for the cameras of fans and don't have goons blocking the people-razzi from their appointed idolizing tasks, Cort sniffily put on airs.

Cort's interview was entertaining enough, but, for me, the highlight of his remarks was when he pointed out the real-life inspiration for Maude was in the house - Colin Higgins' mother!

Higgins, who was openly gay during his Hollywood career and life, tragically cut short by AIDS in 1988, based Maude on his mother, who received rousing cheers from the audience. If anyone knows her first name, please let me know. I Googled 'colin higgins mother' and never found a hit with her full name.

As the theatre was emptying out, I got closer to Mrs. Higgins to shake her hand and tell her how much joy her gay son brought into the world with his screen work. Higgins also wrote and/or directed "Foul Play," " Silver Streak," "9 to 5," and "Best Little Whorehouse in Texas." She lit up when I mentioned the other films her son made.

Standing on her left was another son, who piped up that he played one of the ambulance workers wheeling Maude into the ER at the end of the movie. Her adorable young 20s grandson said, "Grandma, this was the best evening for us."

It was also a the best evening for "Harold and Maude" fans. What a great present I was given, days leading up to my 50 birthday - meeting the real Maude - Mrs. Higgins.

My friend Todd Swindell, whose birthday is one day before mine.He was born on January 25.

I hope things are going well today for you down in Los Angeles at the Equality Summit. Thanks for inviting me to chat with you over coffee this coming Tuesday afternoon. I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say about my concerns and questions regarding the direction of the local gay movement.

By the way, I've read your recent essay, which has not been posted at the Haas Jr. Fund web page and I think it should be available there along with all the blogger sites that have picked up the column, and I have one big concern with what you wrote.

You didn't provide any sourcing for all the stats and poll data you included. In my AIDS blogging, when I discuss a new HIV stats study from the SF DPH or the CDC, I not only source the stats I'm citing, but I also link to the reports on government web sites. I do this in part because I want my blog readers to follow the links and read the full reports.

I believe it would be helpful for me to fully understand some of your statistical points, if you sourced and linked to all the numbers you cite.

- While we won among all voters under 65, more than two-thirds (67%) of voters 65 or older voted for Prop 8.

Was this data from the secretary of state? I'd like to see the age breakdowns of the Prop 8 vote.

- More than two-thirds (70%) of people who worship at least once a week voted for Prop 8 and they make up nearly half (45%) of the electorate. Yes, our side got an equally large proportion of people who hardly ever attend church (70%), but they comprise only 29% of the vote.

You seem to be discussing both polling data and election results. Am I right?

- an astonishing 94% of "Yes" voters said "religion" or the "Bible" was most influential in deciding how to vote.

Where did this stat come from?

- What does combining older voters, frequent churchgoers and Republicans (81% of who voted for Prop 8) yield? A rock solid, close to 50% of the vote, that's what. How solid? Nearly three-quarters (73%) of those who voted for Prop 8 said nothing - that's right, nothing - would have changed their mind.

Same question: what the source behind the percentages?

- At best, we LGBT people make up 6% of the vote and unlike the fervor from our opponents' much larger base we weren't united on marriage equality.

Who determined that 6% figure and how was it arrived at?

- (Two polls said 5% of the LGBT community - or 1% of the total vote - actually voted "Yes.")

I'd like to read both polls. Are they on the web?

- Going into the Prop 8 contest, only a slim majority of Californians (54%) even believed that our relationships are moral.

Fascinating point. What study determined that percentage and who paid for the study?

- Here's another painful reality all this research again showed: using gay and lesbian people as messengers not only failed to move people in our direction, it actually hurt us - driving movables against marriage equality.

"All this research"? You've discussed quite a bit of research and I'm not sure which stat exactly you're referring to. And what are movables? I don't work in polling research so I don't have a clue what a moveable is. Sure would like to know where all this research is on the web and read it.

- Closer to home, nearly three years ago the Haas, Jr. Fund, Gill Foundation, the David Bohnett Foundation, Ambassador Jim Hormel and others invested nearly $500,000 to understand what would move Californians to support marriage equality and how to address the deeply conflicting views the mushy middle holds about LGBT equality. Once again, ads featuring gay people - individuals or couples or families - just did not work.

Where's the online proof to support the contention that it didn't work? You may have an absolutely legit point, I just want to read the research that allowed you to arrive at this conclusion.

- What did work were messages that pushed people to think about the issue in a new way, namely, asking them how would they feel if they were in our shoes. But again, gay and lesbian people didn't work as the messengers.

Please show me the research proving that pushing people to wear my Birkenstock's was a hit with voters. I think it would grealy help further the discussion you've engendered to have the stats and sources for all the numbers and conclusions you present.

There are at least two choices today to follow some live-blogging of the EQCA-organized Prop 8 and failed gay leadership summit in Los Angelges today.

There's the bland relentless cheerleading style of blogging, with much gushing, from EQCA's resident blogger George Simpson. Click here for his live-blogging. No comments from readers have been posted yet.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Haas Jr Fund = $2.5M to EQCA, NCLR for Gay Marriage Fight

As part of my campaign to bring transparency to two of the groups that were instrumental in the No on 8 campaign, Equality California and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, I've been rooting around trying to learn who their big donors are, because I want them to pressure EQCA and NCLR, both based in San Francisco, to not only hold a summit on Prop 8 in the Castro district, but to begin hosting regular public forums in the city.

One of the largest funders to the groups is the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund, which is where Matt Foreman, the former executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, works and helps manage the funds grants to gay advocacy and social service nonprofits.

What I learned from searching the Haas Jr. Fund's site is that from 2003 through 2008, the fund contributed $1,385,000 to EQCA and $1,1175,000 to NCLR, for a combined total of $2,560,000. Nice chunk of change, wouldn't you say?

I've left voice mail messages for Foreman, requesting that he lobby these grantees to organize public forums in the Castro, just like Harvey Milk did in the 1970s. If the Haas Jr. Fund and its millions can't persuade EQCA and NCLR to engage in direct community organizing in their own back yard, to keep the gay base informed and personally engaged with the work of these advocacy groups, then nothing can.

I'll leave it to other gay bloggers to address these questions. Was the $2.5 million wisely spent? Did the community get a terrific bang from all those bucks? Should the Haas Jr. Fund, EQCA and NCLR provide the community with a report on what was accomplished over the years with that funding?

I'm happy to report that Foreman's colleague has emailed me requesting that I meet with him next week. We've set the date for some chat over coffee for Tuesday afternoon. I'll let you know what we talk about.

To strengthen civil rights and protections for lesbians and gays in California.

$150,000

2007

For a statewide public education and media campaign to raise awareness about discrimination against lesbian and gay couples and their families.

$100,000

To educate the general public about the importance of marriage equality and other civil protections for same-sex couples.

$125,000

For a statewide public education and media campaign to raise awareness about discrimination against lesbian and gay couples and their families.

$100,000

For a statewide public education and media campaign to raise awareness about discrimination against lesbian and gay couples and their families.

$100,000

2006

To build the legal, communications, advocacy and fundraising capacity to educate about the need for marriage equality for gay and lesbian people.

$125,000

For a statewide public education and media campaign to raise awareness about discrimination against lesbian and gay couples and their families.

$100,000

To build the legal, communications, advocacy and fundraising capacity to educate about the need for marriage equality for gay and lesbian people.

$100,000

2005

For a statewide public education and media campaign to raise awareness about discrimination against lesbian and gay couples and their families.

$100,000

To build the legal, communications, advocacy and fundraising capacity to educate about the need for marriage equality for gay and lesbian people.

$100,000

To build the legal, communications, advocacy and fundraising capacity to educate about the need for marriage equality for gay and lesbian people.

$100,000

2004

To build the legal, communications, advocacy and fundraising capacity to educate about the need for marriage equality for gay and lesbian people.

$100,000

2003

Haas Jr. 50th Anniversary grant.

$50,000

To protect new civil rights laws through educating and mobilizing gay and allied communities.

$35,000

Sub-total:$1,385,000

National Center for Lesbian Rights

2008

For a Flexible Leadership Award, Year Two.

$55,000

For public education to protect and expand legal protections for sexual and gender minorities in California.

$150,000

To protect and expand legal protections for sexual and gender minorities.

$100,000

2007

For a Flexible Leadership Award, Year Two.

$45,000

2006

To build the legal, communications, advocacy and fundraising capacity to educate about the need for marriage equality for gay and lesbian people.

$100,000

To protect and expand legal protections for gay couples and families and to counter homophobia in sports.

$100,000

2005

To build the legal, communications, advocacy and fundraising capacity to educate about the need for marriage equality for gay and lesbian people.

$100,000

To protect and expand legal protections for gay couples and families and to counter homophobia in sports.

$100,000

For a Flexible Leadership Award.

$75,000

2004

To expand legal protections for gay couples and families, and to counter homophobia in sports.

$75,000

To build the legal, communications, advocacy and fundraising capacity to educate about the need for marriage equality for gay and lesbian people.

$100,000

2003

Haas Jr. 50th Anniversary grant.

$100,000

To expand legal protections for gay couples and families, and to counter homophobia in sports.

$75,000

Sub-total:$1,175,000

EQCA amount: $1,385,000NCLR amount: $1,175,000

Total: $2,560,000

What exactly did the avergage gay get from the utilitization of the funds? I wonder if the Haas Jr. Fund executives are satisfied with the results of these groups in the past six years. Good topics for an eventual series of town halls in the Castro neighborhood.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Names of All 16 Members of No on 8'sExecutive Committee Made Public

Since September, I've tried with no luck to learn the names of the gay leaders on the No on 8 executive committee, the folks behind the passage of Prop 8 and the rescinding of gay marriage in California. A lot of other bloggers and gay reporters also wanted the names, but our state's supreme leader, Geoff Kors, ruled that the names should be kept in a closet. Like practically everything Kors and No on 8 touched, the closet and non-transparency ruled.

In December I filed a public records request with Debra Bowen, the secretary of state, for the original filings and declarations by the No on 8/Equality for All campaign. Today, the secretary's public affairs office called me and walked me through the maze of filings, to FPPC Form 410, the Statement of Organization Recipient Committee for the campaign, and, lo, there were the names of the executive committee members.

On January 12, the No on 8 committee filed the Form 410, and called no attention to the filing, even though many activists thirst for the names of the excutive committee.

I've said it before, and it needs repeating: it's easier to locate the names of the Chinese politburo than the name of the ruling body of No on 8. Just because the secretary of state has made public Form 410, regular visitors to her site won't know the info exists, never mind how to drill down for it.

May they all spend the next year sweeping the streets of their gay neighborhoods and doing many acts of penace for squandering $45 million of gay community dollars and losing gay marriage equality in California.

Lesson learned for me? It always pays to file a FOIA/public records/sunshine request, sometimes on paper as with the secretary of state, when looking for basic info, if you can't find it on the web.

The distributor of Gus Van Sant's "Milk" movie starring Sean Penn, today runs a full-page ad on page A-13 of the SF Chronicle, that obliquely equates the inauguration of President Barack Obama with the life and times of Harvey Milk.

Did the ad appear in any other newspaper today? I checked the NY Times' national edition and didn't see it in any of the Gray Lady's sections.

Everything is happening here — votes are tallied, hearts broken, lives risked and saved, tactical decisions made, emotions expressed and suppressed — but only one thing is happening. What makes all of this cohere is art, and history. THIS IS HOW CHANGE HAPPENS. THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE.

And at the very bottom of the ad, this appears:

CELEBRATE HOPE - SEE IT IN THEATRES NOW.

Sure, let's all celebrate hope for our new president, his family and cabinet, and our nation, but it doesn't take spending money to see a terrific flick in the theatres to celebrate this new dawn. All you have to do is go out on the streets to see the celebrating. But there is nothing wrong either with catching this movie and driving up its profits.

I don't read the Join the Impact too often, which is how I managed to miss the controversy last week over this nascent gay group's call to action over the killing by a BART transit police officer of a young black man, Oscar Grant. Commentator Willow wrote:

Given the recent bruises our community and our movement has taken from the allegations of non-support by fellow communities working for civil rights, this seems like the right time to stand united against hate crime in any and every form ...

Stand in solidarity with concerned citizens of Oakland, youth, clergy and elected officials who want Justice for Oscar Grant. Not one more life.

For those outside the Oakland area I strongly encourage you to contact local community leaders to find out if there are vigils in your city being held in Oscar Grant’s name. Go! Spread the word! Get people there! We must stand together against violence and hate crimes. If there is nothing organized in your city, then please make it happen ...

A heated debate soon broke out over that message, and as of today, 27 comments have been made to that thread. I don't think Willow made anything near a strong case for how the killing of Oscar Grant is a gay-related issue, and there's nothing made public so far that the victim was gay.

Just what the nature of Oscar's relationship with the LGBTQ community was is beyond us. If you know, let us in on it.

Anyway, this is exactly what SFist Mattymatt predicted the day after the protest. Fizzle fizzle fizzle. But the one bright side to crazy super-left-wing mouth-foaming like this? It keeps the idiots busy, so they don't bother the grownups as they go about doing serious work to overturn prop 8.

Gosh, Stonewall 2.0 lasted even less time than Web 2.0. Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Ouch, it stings to read Keeling's belief that Join the Impact is watering itself down into irrelevance, so soon after it formed with great hopes from thousands of gays, myself included. I'm not sure that Join the Impact is going down the path Keeling thinks it is, but I'd like to see the group stay gay-focused, achieve some tangible results, and when straying from a gay-specific agenda, to clearly and forcefully argue why issues such as the BART killing are of concern to gays.

Monday, January 19, 2009

BAR: Why is no Equality SummitPlanned for SF?

Last week, the Bay Area Reporter editorialized about the January 24 Equality California leadership summit taking place in Southern California and asked a rude question, one that has yet to be answered by EQCA and the San Francisco/Northern California organizing committee members.

Why can't the organizers recognize the need to hold a comparable summit in our fair city?

But this matter of why a San Francisco version can't be organized by EQCA, and let me remind everyone that the lack of a summit here comes in the larger context of not a single community forum in the Castro, shouldn't be swept under the rug.

I've read stories and opinions from Southern California-based journos Ocamb in LA, Rex Wockner in San Diego, and Patricia Nell Warren, that only address the need to have full media access to the summit. The gay writers raise no concerns about the dearth of community forums up here in the last two-plus months, with none on the horizon.

The failure of EQCA, gay elected officials, and the many paid Gay Inc advocacy executives in San Francisco to put on not just one forum, but three or four of them, is not healthy for the local and regional communities. It's not enough to have dozens of Bay Area activists flying down to this weekend for the summit, and I'm pleased so many from up here are making the trip.

But nothing can replace the beauty and community-muscle-flexing benefits to gain when San Francisco revives the dormant practice of holding gay public gatherings.

There are plans for a summit in Los Angeles (where No on 8 lost) later this month that reportedly will include No on 8 leaders. Where is the summit for San Francisco? Organizers were notably mum about committing to such a meeting, instead passing off some sort of "regional planning group" as a future meeting.

A deeply troubling aspect of the upcoming LA summit is the rumblings about restricted media access. We've noted before that such a muzzle on the media is a grave disservice to the LGBT community as we attempt to reorganize and refocus our efforts at attaining marriage equality. It doesn't make sense to us. There needs to be an assessment of No on 8's performance; a campaign funded with millions of donor dollars.

What are they afraid of?

The LA summit should be public and open to all. Sure the anti-same-sex marriage forces likely will eavesdrop, but at this point, there has been breathless analyses of the Prop 8 campaigns, the vote, the money, the involvement of Catholics and Mormons, and on and on. It just boggles the mind that anyone would accept such outlandish conditions as restricted access and secrecy..

Back in October, we ran the big "Red Alert" headline precisely because of a severe lack of fundraising and community complacency attributed to misleading polls. Yet now it seems that very same complacency has begun to creep back, as many don't seem to be concerned that there is currently no plan for a public meeting here. Spirited protests can only do so much; and while No on 8 leaders have praised the activism, they are missing the larger point that we need an honest – and public - examination of their shortcomings in order to move forward successfully.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Annual Transmission Ratesper 100 Persons Living with HIV, 1977–2006Centers for Disease Control and PreventionDecember 8, 2008

CDC: Dramatic Declines Indicate Successin U.S. HIV Prevention

If you're like me, you missed a significant report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing big drops in HIV infection stats. The federal agency also included helpful visual tools, two graphs, illustrating the positive news about falling transmission rates. How the heck did this incredible report fail to garner any media attention, issued one week after World AIDS Day? I Googled for any straight or gay media mention of the report, and checked for blogosphere attention of it, and found references only on CDC and HHS web sites.

To my thinking, the great news contained in the report should have been embraced and promoted not just by HIV/AIDS groups, but also gay advocacy organizations. Not just because we all can always use good news about HIV in the USA, but the gay community, after the tragic loss of gay marriage in California and the passage of Prop 8, really could have used the CDC report to pat ourselves on the back for enormously reducing new HIV cases.

I must also point out that the CDC acts as if it fear-driven prevention programs targeting gay men are the big reason behind the dramatic drop. So much effective HIV prevention among gay pozzies is because of community-created and promoted practices such as serosorting, which the federal agencies and many nonprofits don't encourage.

There is something wrong with America's approach to combating HIV/AIDS when an important study showing laudalbe drops in new transmissions from the CDC is quietly released, then generates no media, nonprofit or community attention. What's so bad about dramatic declines of HIV in America?

To understand the impact of prevention efforts on the US HIV epidemic, Johns Hopkins researcher Dr. David Holtgrave conducted an analysis designed to measure the annual rate of HIV transmission in the United States. Dr. Holtgrave worked with CDC researchers to apply the latest annual data on new HIV infections in the United States to this analysis. The resulting measure, the transmission rate, represents the annual number of new HIV infections transmitted per 100 persons living with HIV. It is calculated by dividing HIV incidence for a given year by HIV prevalence for the same year, and multiplying this number by 100.

Put simply, the transmission rate compares the annual number of new infections to the number of persons living with HIV, and indicates the likelihood that an HIV infected individual will transmit HIV to others. In this way, it provides a better means to assess the effects of public health efforts to promote changes in risk behavior as well as the preventive effects of HIV diagnosis and treatment. ...

Since the peak level of new infections in the mid-1980s, just prior to the introduction of HIV testing, the transmission rate has declined by approximately 89 percent (from 44 transmissions per 100 persons living with HIV in 1984 to five transmissions per 100 persons living with HIV in 2006).

Over the last decade, as prevention efforts have been expanded and improved treatments for HIV became available, the transmission rate has declined by 33 percent (from an estimated eight transmissions per 100 persons living with HIV in 1997 to five in 2006).

Five transmissions per 100 persons living with HIV in 2006 means more than 95 percent of persons living with HIV did not transmit the infection that year.